A topper and gold medallist from Calcutta University and Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, in MSc (Education) and Tagore Literature, respectively, Professor Marmar Mukhopadhyay did his PhD from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, and postdoctoral work from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. He has provided leadership as joint director and director (i/c) of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), New Delhi, chairman of the National Open School (NOS), vice president of the International Council of Distance Education (ICDE), Oslo, and member of the Steering Committee of International Multichannel Action Group on Education (Washington, DC).He has been involved in educational policy making since 1986. He chaired the CABE subcommittee on the universalization of secondaryeducation. He has been a member of various working committees of the Planning Commission.Professor Mukhopadhyay specializes in (educational) management, educational and training technology, and open and distance education. He has conducted a large number of capacity-building programmes for college principals, university registrars and other senior officials. Mukhopadhyay uniquely combines experience as a teacher in higher education with expertise in management science, educational management training and institution building. His case of institution building—NOS—has been published in Leadership for Institution Building, an award-winning book on leadership.British Council, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, Common wealth of Learning, Department for International Development (DFID), IBM, Intel, Microsoft, GESCI, KPMG, Institute of Human Settlement, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), NIIT and so on have consulted Professor Mukhopadhyay.Professor Mukhopadhyay represented India in many important international forums, including International Conference in Education(ICE) in Geneva, UNESCO (Reconstruction of Post-war Afghanistan), Regional Quality Forum (Beijing) and so on.Professor Mukhopadhyay has contributed 24 books and more than 250 book chapters, addresses to learned gatherings, research papers, thematic articles and conference papers published from India and abroad. Some of his important titles include: Open Schooling: Selected Experience, Education in India: Dynamics of Development, Leadership for Institution Building in Education, Value Development in Higher Education, Educational Technology: Knowledge Assessment, Story of EDUSAT and so on. His book Total Quality Management in Education (SAGE, 2005) is globally acclaimed and has been rendered into several Indian languages.Professor Mukhopadhyay has been involved in the production and direction of more than 40 educational films as a script writer, actor, producer and director. Some of his educational films have been repeatedly telecast.He has travelled widely on professional assignments to Europe, America, the Middle East, Africa, China and South Asia.With all these activities, he anchors himself to the rural community. His ‘Udang Experiment’ on arresting primary school dropouts was flagged by the Government of India’s Education for All (EFA) document for the high level group (HLG) meeting in Brazil in 2005, which attracted attention of the international media. His information technology intervention in rural areas received extensive coverage in Western news media drawing attention of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) team.
